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Untitled Article
dency of the mind to call up pleasurable and consolatory thoughts is so strong , that no efforts of our own , from a regard to the opinion of the world , or any other motive , can long depress the elasticity of the soul . If such be the happy bent of our nature , wny should it be counteracted ? If we possess the power of enjoying innocent pleasures , our true wisdom is to seek them , whatever our circumstances may be , and whatever the world may
think of our sensibilities . —It need scarcely be suggested how careful we should be not to censure our fellow-sufferers for shrinking from efforts which are beneficial to ourselves , or to judge of their conduct by our own , be the apparent similarity of the circumstances ever so striking . While we feel that the world may as well attempt to fathom the ocean , or reach the uttermost parts of the earth , as to compass our griefs or estimate our consolations , we must guard ourselves against a similar presumption , though our
own discipline may have enlightened our eyes and instructed our judgments . Two other dangers next present themselves to our notice , opposite in their character , but equally formidable . There is much fear that the soul which has suffered much should become callous , and this peril may be enhanced by the very tendency of the mind , ( to turn to pleasant thoughts wherever they can be found , ) which has been mentioned as one of the happiest circumstances of our nature . It is a privilege which the Father of
mercies has conferred on his rational offspring ; and while it serves as an alleviation of our griefs and a means of refreshment and invigoration to the soul , it can be subservient only to good : but when we make use of it to turn our minds from serious reflection , to escape from Him who would purify us by salutary discipline , we convert our privilege into a curse . If , when we find our Jiopes disappointed and our blessings withdrawn , we can
find a refuge from regret in the trifling interests of the world , if we play the truant to avoid our punishment , we must not congratulate ourselves on bearing it well ; but should rather mourn that what ought to be the most efficacious means of grace does but harden our hearts , accumulate new perils upon our heads , and augment the heavy reckoning which futurity has in store against us . To this danger the strong and high spirit is most exposed : to its opposite , timidity , the gentle and humble soul is peculiarly liable .
But few words are necessary here . Those who have known what real sorrow is , know also what it is to tremble at every breath , to dread every change , to strain the aching sight to discern what new evils lie in the clouded future , to have a superstitious , unacknowledged feeling that every effort will end in disappointment , every blessing prove a snare , every acquisition give place to bereavement . They scarcely dare approach the streams of God ' s bounty lest they should be defiled with blood , and are ready to refuse to taste the fruits which he showers into their lap , lest they should find them dust and bitter ashes . This timidity may , for a while , consist with a desire
to acquiesce in the appointments of Providence ; but if not timely checked , it will lead through the gradations of despondency , ingratitude , and insensibility , to Atheism , speculative and practical . Many more are the snares into which the unwary may fall in a state which is too often thought to be one of peculiar safety . But those which remain will suggest themselves to the mind of the reader under some of the
preceding heads . The principal of those on which we cannot now enlarge preceding heads , lhe principal of those on which we cannot now enlarge are dreaminess , —living in a world of imagination and sentiment—and listlessness in the performance of necessary but irksome duties . The first arises from the before-mentioned error of fancying that the subjects of discipline are the objects of God ' s peculiar favour , in a strictly literal sense ; the last ,
Untitled Article
560 On the-E > an $ en of Adversity *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1827, page 560, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1799/page/8/
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